By Sylvie Corbet and John Leicester, The Associated Press (via The Air Force Times)
When the 5,000th B-17 bomber built after Pearl Harbor rolled out of its Boeing factory, teenage riveter Anna Mae Krier made sure it would carry a message from the women of World War II: She signed her name on it.
Now 98, and in Normandy, France, for this week’s 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Krier is still proudly promoting the vital roles played by women in the June 6, 1944, invasion and throughout the war — including by making weaponry that enabled men to fight.
Krier was among millions of women who rolled up their sleeves in defense-industry factories, replacing men who volunteered and were called up for combat in the Pacific, Africa and Europe.
The women had their own icon in “Rosie the Riveter,” a woman in a polka-dotted bandanna flexing a muscular arm in a recruitment poster that declared: “We can do it!”